Richard Hammond: The heartbreaking conversation that I am STILL avoiding!
Guests: Richard Hammond
Full transcript · Read the full conversation in order, with its original context.
§01Transcript — part 1
He was answering a question that I'd always wondered. When am I going to die? Quit! It was like, oh, it's now. Would you please welcome... Richard Hammond! BBC Top Gear presenter. Grant Hall presenter. One of the biggest TV shows in history. It's fair to say that he has the best job in the world. Be funny, quicker, and every compensatory measure that anybody who's diminutive in height has ever made, I've done. It's one of the reasons I'm a broadcaster now, for sure.
There's a cost to that, though. Yeah. What's the cost? Was there a moment in the journey of Top Gear where you thought to yourself, this is big? We went out in front of 60,000 people. And just before we went out, I said, lads, have three guys with less talent ever gone out in front of more people? Is there any guilt associated with your success? Yeah, there is. I want to prove I'm not a lucky idiot. So I took some risky decisions. Have you ever pondered that you might... Might have overdone it.
Richard Hammond has been seriously injured in a car crash. They had called Mindy in. They said, I think, we're losing him. I had very bad post-traumatic amnesia for like a one-minute memory. Wow. I have to consciously write memories down and work hard to recall them. Do you worry about that? I do. The damage was done. We'll probably have a look and find out. Are you scared to find out? Yeah. Richard, can we start by you giving me your context, your earliest context?
Where? Yeah, little fella, born in Birmingham. Mum and dad, I'm the oldest of three brothers. Quite a close-knit family. My mum's dad worked in the car industry, he was a coach builder, so he was trained as a cabinet maker, working with wood. Then he went into coach building, which is in the old days when cars had a steel chassis and then they'd have an ash, usually wooden frame over the top. So that's where he started because his cabinet making skills were relevant.
But then he stayed within the car industry and finished up working at Jensen. So cars were always... They were always in my imagination. They weren't, like, littering the drive, because, you know, we had modest means. So, you know, we had a Purple Marina Coupe as our best car. But I loved them. And that grew into an obsession. Yeah, so schooled there until 15. And then we moved north as a family. And I went to Ripon Grammar School up in the north.
And from there started working radio in 1988. That's a long time ago, isn't it? I wasn't alive back then. Yes, thank you so much. We've already, just as I was coming in, we mentioned that. The fact that I talk regularly to full-grown adults, important people, you do lots of important stuff. And they'll say, oh, yeah, I love your show. I used to watch it when I was a little kid. Yeah, I've done it that long. Yeah, I know. You've led a life that is a real anomaly in many respects.
You know, you've done some unbelievable things that people would just dream of doing. When I think back in my own life, I try and pinpoint the moments of influence, whether it was a TV show I watched or something that happened, for better or for worse, like you said with your dad and his love for cars, that made me end up living a life that was a little bit different. When you think about those things and why you became an anomaly, what are those anomalous influences that you've had?
See, my favourite game is to look back and pretend they were all part of some great plan and thread them all together, but you can only do that in retrospect. For me, I guess, I always liked expression. I wanted to be a painter or I wanted to draw really well. I loved art at school. I loved English. I loved writing. But I loved photography when I was about ten, ten. how to improvise a little darkroom under the stairs and print my own black and white photographs.
So I loved all of that, but I was very much... Things like that were for other people. I think it was a Birmingham thing. Brummies... I've always had to... But Brummies don't go, wow. Your average Bromio will never go, wow, they'll go, that's not, I mean, my TEDx got one like that, only bigger. It's just something we do. We don't profess to, we don't do that. And you kind of need to be able to do that to then think, that's what I might pursue. So key moment, am I making this up as being a key moment?
I don't know. It feels like it. When I was eight, something like that, nine, my dad's parents lived in Western Supermare. So we'd go on holiday there, which meant an endless drive from Birmingham. Yes, before the motorway went all the way. So... I wasn't alive then. Yeah, yeah, that's going to be a theme. We went all the way down to Western Supermare to see them and we were walking along the front there. There's a low sea wall and a beach down here on my right.
And I saw there was a bit of a kerfuffle going on, and a little eight-year-old me looked over the wall. And a load of people gathered round, and some people holding things, and in the middle, it was Derek Griffiths, presenter, who was doing a piece to camera. And there was a camera there, and I remember thinking, that's amazing, he's been so... animated and talking to that thing. There's nobody there, but he's talking to it, he's engaging with it, and sort of almost pulling a response out of it.
And I think that was... I didn't leave that experience going, that's it, I'm going to be a television presenter, because that was for other people, just as being a photographer was for other people or an artist. But it was there in my heart. That's when I thought, I bet that feels amazing. What was for you? If that was for other people, what did you think was for you? I don't know. I guess it... I would never have imagined anything that I've done happening to me.
None of it. For me was just... See, I'm that bit older than you. And possibly there's a generation that were raised by people who were glad to have got through the war and for whom what they really wanted was just a quiet life with nobody trying to kill them or their parents or their loved ones. So I wonder if there's echoes of that. And I think that was maybe still echoing around Birmingham, that what you really wanted was just to make sure everything's OK, just to give everybody's all right, we can have a family life and we can just...
progress without making a fuss, sticking your head over the parapet, because that brings risk. So avoid that, don't. So I never would have dreamed, I'm not saying I was directionless. Had I asked you at 18 or 16, what are you gonna be when you grow up? What would you have replied, do you think? 16, I'd have replied, I just wanna ride me moped. I'd have wanted to be an artist, a great painter, but had taken no meaningful steps towards it at all, because, again, lacked confidence.
Yeah, I was sort of, that would only have happened if a miracle had occurred. Do you know what I mean? If you have an option that you're not actually pursuing actively because you think that's not for me, but I'll keep it in there. Admittedly what I'm saying is like I was hoping to win the lottery but I wasn't doing the lottery. But it feels like that. But by 18 I'd have said I want to be in radio and ultimately TV. And that's what ends up happening, right?
You go and study... Yeah, well, I'd sat my O-levels under a different examination board and a different syllabus from that under which I'd studied. And then I went into sixth form. But it reached a point eventually when the teaching staff thought it might be better if I went somewhere else. Literally anywhere else, just not there. Just don't be... They chucked me out. But not for anything heroic. I wasn't one of those, yes, I set fire to the janitor's car.
I just was annoying. I was an irritant. And I wasn't focusing, so they slung me out. What do you mean, when you say annoying, you mean, oh, God, just winding the teachers up or something? Yeah. Trying to be funny. Every compensatory measure that anybody who's diminutive in height has ever made, I've done. I only discovered recently that one of my dearest friends, Zog Ziegler, whom I've known for 30-odd years, he's 20 years older than me, In emails referring to me, to other people, he copied me into one by accident about ten years ago.
He always calls me little Napoleon. I didn't know he'd been doing that. He looked a bit shamefaced, but he still does. Yeah, I exhibited all of those traits. I was just irritating, honestly, really annoying. Do you know why? Because I was conscious of being, you know, smaller than everybody else, and I wanted to be a bigger noise in the room. I wanted to sort of... disrupt and do stuff, but I didn't want to be naughty. I still hate being in trouble.
I hate being in trouble. It bothers me. And it did then, but I was just, honestly, I wouldn't have put up with me. You know, there's like a stereotype that that if you're smaller in stature, that you're you're insecure, that it becomes almost like a shame or an insecurity as a young man, and then you kind of, you act against that by exhibiting certain behaviors. Was that true for you? Was there ever like a shame of being smaller? It was, yeah, I guess you don't really, it's not something you crave.
Although I've spoken to lots of tall people who often wish and had a similarly difficult time as a child, because you're always sticking out of the crowd and you don't always want to, and you can't make yourself small. It genuinely doesn't trouble me now. I mean, the truth of the matter is, often when I meet people for the first time, and if they've seen me on the telly, there's a moment, and they're disappointed, because they're expected to meet something that you'd hang on a Christmas tree or put on the mantelpiece.
But I'm actually, what, 5'7"-ish? So I'm fairly... average really, it's just that I've consistently worked with much taller people. But it, yeah, it did drive me on as a kid. And I do, it's bullying. I've never bleated about it, but it is. And it influenced me greatly, yeah. Yeah, I overcompensated. I felt I had to. It's almost like you take that as a kid, I mean. You take that into the room with you. Anything that makes you different, whatever that is, you take that in the room with you and it's kind of...
You have to deal with it and you have to deal with it, you have to compensate for it, be funnier or be quicker or be angrier or noisier or naughtier. You have to somehow compensate for this thing, which is to do with, I guess, if you could bring that thing with you into a room and it was simply absorbed and it didn't matter, then you could be the person behind all of that. So, yeah, I think it did influence. It's one of the reasons I'm a broadcaster now.
For sure. Really? Yeah. Bound to be. Must be. Must be. I've often thought really... If you're lucky enough, it depends. People seldom have careers now as broadcasters, as I think of it, because they're personalities, and that's a different game. But I come from an era when it was a craft. I spent a long time learning about how to address an audience through radio. You never pluralize the audience. You talk to people one on one. all sorts of things.
And those craft skills have gone, and they've gone from TV. Is that a bad or a good thing? I don't know. If actually we're getting to see people genuinely as they are, if we're celebrating interesting personalities, rather than somebody who simply learned to craft, maybe that's better. But I was pushed to do it, I think, in part by that. And I've often said that the worst people to pursue it, as in the worst people to deal with the trappings of success in the media.
are by definition the same ones who are the only ones driven enough to achieve it because they're compensating. So that's why it can be damaging because only the man or woman who was so desperate for it will have hung on and endured sacrificing friends and time and spare time and sometimes dignity and whatever else in order to get there. And they're therefore the least able to deal with it when whatever it was that they craved is given them. They'd be better off solving the craving, removing the craving, than feeding it.
That's my theory. I said this to my girlfriend yesterday. Did you? In bed at 1am. Yeah. You said... The point about how people that strive to have the admiration, let's call it, or the success, whatever, the sort of external validation is maybe a broader way to kind of describe that... are also the ones that once they get it will struggle the most to deal with it, whether it's because of the scrutiny that comes with it or the power that comes with it or whatever that comes with it.
Well, that's my exact point. That's exactly it. Yeah, we agree. I think it's fairly obvious when you see it that way. I'm not against all of that. We live in that world where people can project their personalities across all... across the world. That doesn't trouble me, overly. The only thing that does trouble me is occasionally I'll meet a young person, a kid, and they'll say, oh, that's great, I love what you do, I'd love to be famous. And I'll always stop at that.
I always, really? Why? Because, you know, it's a byproduct of a fascinating and potentially rewarding job, and it can be important, it can be... powerful even but the fame itself is just it just means it's embarrassing standing on a train on your own because everybody's staring at you that's all it means i guess if you live in london and go out a lot it might mean you can get a restaurant table but you can only get that if you're going to go hi i'm kind of a big deal for television can i have a table okay and then you feel even worse when you can't Were you aware that you were being driven by some kind of insecurity throughout that period?
Or was it really in hindsight that you look back and go, ah? Was I aware? Yeah, I was. Yeah. I mean, I learned to fight early on. I learned to punch above my weight, to make a noise, to be braver. If there's some idiot on his bicycle trying to jump over a... some action man toys on a ramp. It'd be me. Yeah, I knew. I knew. I was a small kid just screaming, notice me, notice me, notice me. I think. I think. And the problem there, of course... A lot of us don't we?
We'll have traits that aren't always the best, but that are rooted in justifiable cause. But if your job then rewards it, if you are needily showing off, my mum used to stop showing off. Sorry, that was my childhood. But if you're then rewarded for it, wait a minute, your brain is sort of remapped a little bit to go, oh, so that isn't a bad thing, I should pursue that because I literally am rewarded financially and people seem to like me, so I'll continue doing it.
It's why my midlife crisis has lasted 20 years and it's still going on. I'm quite enjoying it. I am, you know, maybe 10, 20 episodes ago on this podcast, I started because I'd heard similar themes in my guests that they were being, they were almost describing themselves as being dragged by an insecurity. And I was, I started to make this kind of distinction between being driven, which is maybe for intrinsic reasons or whatever, and then being dragged where there's some kind of void you're trying to fill or insecurity you're trying to mend or some validation you're seeking.
And... you know, you're either in the front of the car, driving down the motorway, or you're kind of on the end of it being dragged by this pursuit of like validation. And how at some point in our lives, we probably need to like take hold of the steering wheel and be conscious about the direction we're traveling in and not being dragged by the insecurity or the desire to be liked, whatever it might be. Was there a point in your life where the thing driving you moved from being that, that, you know, insecurity or that, that pursuit to show off and the validation it creates to being a little bit more conscious.
Because I sometimes worry in myself, but also in the conversations I have that if we don't at some point realize what's driving us, it might drive us to the wrong place. It might drag us to the wrong place, should I say. Initially I don't think I spent that much time thinking about it like that because, heck, it was work. If you're a freelancer in radio in 1988, 89, you go where the job is and you live in whatever bed you've got to live in to do it.
Because I love the job and it's not... It wasn't at one long, introspective, navel-gazing party. It was, this is really cool, I really enjoy it. And in those days I'd arrive at a new radio station and... if I was lucky, be given the radio station car, which was often quite a new car, which was... And dispatched in that with a Ewer tape recorder, which is a reel-to-reel quarter-inch tape recorder. That, to you, is a steam train. Sound like an iPod, sorry.
No, it's about 20 years before the iPod. It is, honestly. It belongs in a museum, but that's what we used. So I'd be dispatched with that to go and do an interview with no mobile phone to hook up. But when I got there, I loved it. I still love harvesting people's thoughts and ideas and sharing them via any medium. I mean, look at what we live in now. Look at what you're doing, what we can do, what I do. Drive Tribe that I now run, that is about doing exactly that.
And it's almost... Your generation, I guess, and the agencies that you run and the work that you do, you're that bit further than I am from, as I'm still closer, to still being amazed. I used to have a fantasy when I was working radio to go and do interviews, again, with no more above phone, so you had to pick up a phone with a curly wire and make the appointment, and you had to be on time because you couldn't just turn up and then, oh, I'll call you when I get there.
There were no mobile phones. It didn't exist. And there was no internet to research where you were going. So you all sat naved. So you took a paper map, navigated your way there, and you did your interview. You could link up live with the radio station, but through like a radio mask that you had to put up. And then you'd go back. And I used to fantasize about, imagine if I could just go anywhere and do live broadcasting. It's just... And the other day we were having a meeting with...
the guys that work with me on Drive Tribe and we were talking about a show I'm not going to tell you because you're going to do it and you'll take it from me but we've got a cracking idea for a little show we want to do on platform and it involves first of all Lucy one of the people in the team she's going to go off and do this thing and we can do it we can link live you think well what? hmm maybe those of my generation should keep hold of that amazement and just keep it going because it will be...
I mean, to you, of course you can. I'm still a bit amazed by that. Is that a good thing? Is it useful? Yes. I'm going to say yeah, but I'm only saying yeah for romantic reasons because actually it makes no difference at all. The fact is you can practically, you can do what you can do. So do it to good effect. Sitting there, hopping up and down going, oh, it's amazing that we can do it probably doesn't help. Hmm. What do you think? Better to be...
Gratitude, right? There's a level of gratitude in there, which is a healthy feeling. Yes, there is. I'm grateful that we are able to do that. I'm grateful that we live in a time when we can come up with an idea, sitting in my bar and having a meeting, and then just do it. That's amazing. And a younger generation or a generation that haven't been exposed to the change might not, they just have an expectation that it happens, so there's less gratitude involved in the fact that it is happening.
Yeah, which made them all grow up like I did, exactly, with no mobile phones and just a hoop and a stick to play with. Do you, I do sometimes ponder if that world, without the internet. My analogue world. Well, it would be a much more enjoyable world for the human being to live in. And it kind of links somewhat back to what we were talking about earlier, where if you think about the essence of what it is to be human, I don't think we're supposed to be exposed to this much information and this much sort of global connection in terms of like the bombardment of notifications and this constant stimulus, which leaves you in that fight or flight state.
Yeah, but the drive to do that is quintessentially human, and it's one of the reasons we proliferated the way we have. That spreading of gossip and sharing of information and sharing of mutually agreed standards, be that industry showbiz gossip. or religion or anything else. But sharing those is what's enabled us to work together in huge numbers. Otherwise we would be in little individual groups still, undergathering. So it's been key. We have to have it.
It was inevitable. I think it's run away a bit. I think the critical nature of gossip and sharing all of that, because we've developed this way of doing it, but maybe it'll decrease in import. Maybe we'll need bigger spikes in it to actually grab our attention. But I don't think we can't condemn it because we've pursued it. What's come out of us? We have all the options, so we need to look at what it will do for us. I think it'll water down, it'll dilute.
I wonder if the brain has evolved at the same pace as it has. Well, I mean, it can. It is a limitlessly flexible bucket of soup and electricity, isn't it, really? I mean, I dented mine crashing into the ground at 320 miles an hour. Stupid boy. That was typical of me. I only did that because I'm a short bloke. That is short bloke all over. Anybody want to drive this rocket-powered dragster? Me, me, me! Will everybody be looking? Yeah, I'll do it.
Then it crashed. But, you know, I did damage mine, and there were... all sorts of anomalies within it, ways in which it didn't work as it should, emotional responses were all over the place, no big motor control issues, but some. But it rewired, it fixes, and there's loads of instances of it doing that. So if the brain can recover and literally physically reshape and function post-physical trauma, then it can also... We could evolve, we could be evolving now.
Will it be genetically encoded and passed down? Hmm. So will a new generation following on from you evolve? Will they carry pre-coded that information to deal with our digital world? Well, physiological changes, no. But then as human beings, because we have to have the capacity, you might be born a Wall Street billionaire, a fisherman in an Amazonian village. the same essential ingredients have to do that. We have to have that limitless flexibility.
So maybe that's why our brain will... Maybe it'll always retain that flexibility, which means, by definition, it can't evolve in a distinctive route because that's narrowing options. We're still born with this incredible capacity to be and do anything within a very broad range of things. And we need to hang on to that. I mean, all a baby giraffe has to do is endure a six foot drop when it's born and be able to run a few minutes later and you're away, that's it.
We have to do a lot of other stuff. I wonder. Part of the reason I ask this question is because I'm trying to think about a lot of the things we're seeing with mental health and how it appears that situational and environmental factors of the modern world are causing the brain to struggle in many ways at a fundamental level, whether it's loneliness that's driving the brain to feel a sense of... purposelessness or something, or whether it's the overstimulation which is causing anxiety and the brain is struggling to cope with that.
That's kind of why I was asking the question as to whether the brain is keeping up with the nature of the modern world. Because there seems to be a lot of symptoms that it isn't. But there's only so many stimuli that can be received and registered via our various senses and organs into that lump in there. There's only so many things that I think you might attribute magical qualities to an analog existence. And you can see why we would, because an analog existence has a degree of definition that couldn't be achieved digitally, because you're always limited.
Whereas it's a bit like trying to explain science and the world using science, trying to explain the universe using science. It's only the languification of it. It's not... It isn't absolute. These aren't the facts. They're a version of facts that we can share between us. And sharing and communicating is what we do. It's what defines us. So that's all it is. It's the languification of that that is. But it doesn't have the definition. It can't go down to a fine enough...
It's still like trying to paint the Mona Lisa using Lego bricks. It's not quite fine enough. But I think a digital world is even less fine because it's zeros and ones. It's absolutes. And yes, in what we do, it's great. It returns empirical data on whether or not something is being approved of if you're making a marketing film as opposed to sticking your finger in the air and seeing which way the wind's blowing and are people looking at that poster outside the bus station.
Yes, but the poster outside the bus station in the analogue world has a far finer level of detail than I think you could do digitally. Yes. But are you saying that it's intrinsically bad that we're drifting towards a digital world and away from the analogue because the analogue contains something that... Because stimuli are stimuli. If you can stimulate, you can replicate... We could honeycomb the entire world. You could be put into a pod into which you could be given sufficient physical, mental stimuli, which is only chemicals, to maintain what is measurably a healthy human being.
Would you be? I don't know. I guess I'm asserting that humans clearly have some fundamental needs, you know, shelter, connection, care. I was going to say psychological safety, I'm not sure that's necessarily a human need, but it's important. And some of those things seem to be being stripped away by the nature of the world we live in today, where in America, when asked, how many people have you got to turn to in a time of crisis? The answer used to be three.
I think it's the modal answer or the medium answer is now zero. Theresa May appointed the first loneliness are. They think loneliness is significantly worse than smoking 20 cigarettes a day, reduces your life expectancy by 10 years. And I wonder whether that's almost like a human response to something that's been stripped away from the way we live our lives over the last whatever. You know, like living in four white walls alone is a... single bachelor ordering my food using a glass screen, ordering like dating using a piece of glass, stimulating myself potentially sexually using a piece of glass screen in my hand, and then the processed food that I'm eating.
I'm just wondering, and then look, you know, the constant stimulation of this dopamine hit from this glass screen as well in my hand, that's keeping me awake up at night, hurting my sleep, and then keeping me in fight or flight because I'm nervous about something on this glass screen. But if that's the answer, what is the answer to that? Because we made it, collectively as a species, we have gone that route. I mean, I'm not sort of absolutely saying we've gone that way.
Well, yeah, I'm not saying we've gone that way. We must continue doing that. It might well be that disruptors need to put their hand up and say, are we sure about this? I mean, I wanted to talk about the car, because I believe that the car is sort of an expression of some of that. Because in that analogue world, which, all right, I'm from... Um, you've got those needs, so you need shelter, I suppose, warmth, food, stimulation, supplies, mate. Once you've got beyond cave, a car comes to represent all of it.
That's why it's important. That's why it very quickly became a symbol, because you've got shelter, but what are you going to do, starve to death and die of loneliness and boredom at the back of your cave? No, you need to leave it and get that that you need. And something that can get you there first, to the kill, to the mate, to the resources, is powerful. That's what the car became. You're very passionate about the role of the car in society, aren't you?
Yes, I am, because of what it represents, which is everything other than shelter. Yeah, and here's me getting all poetic and romantic and dewy-eyed about the analogue world, because I think something that moves you physically, corporally, from one place to another... That's powerful, because I'm going there, I'm taking my person, myself, and the universe only exists for each of us in here. So I'm taking, therefore, the universe with me to wherever it is I'm going to do whatever it is I'm going to do.
And that makes it impossibly exciting. And for that reason, I think it'll never go away. Top gear. That really was a big hit. Yeah, you caught on, didn't you? Yeah, it was remarkable. I'd done car shows, I'd done radio for years, moved to the South to get a job at Renault in the press office so I could get to know the editors of the car shows, which I duly did, one of whom, Pete Baker, saved me and gave me a job on Granada Men and Motors making little car shows.
And then eventually, after years and years and years of doing that, I auditioned for the new Top Gear and got the job. When you got that job, what were your expectations of the role of the show? Well, initially I cried and opened a bottle of champagne. Oh, God, yeah, I was just... Well, I'd spent my whole life trying to do that, so it had worked. Yeah, yeah, it was a huge moment. But we just thought we'll make a car show. I remember the conversation in White City, BBC HQ, with most of us, it was before James joined, but the rest of us were all in place, and weirdly, some of the people we still work with now.
§02Transcript — part 2
We were all in that room, and we all said, right, these are the grand rules of Top Gear. It's about the real world, cars that people really buy, no supercars, no foreign travel. We're only going to drive proper cars that people buy in this country, and then that didn't last very long at all. we realised that's not what people wanted not what we wanted to make we never made it with any science or calculation we just made the best car show we could and we were lucky things aligned the world wanted that show three misshapen blokes talking about their passion but I do think you'd have watched that pottery show I don't care about pottery at all But watching people who are so into it, you know, the lovely chap cries when somebody does something.
It's like, wow. Watching people engage with, indulge or share their passion is incredibly compelling. Whether it's for making pottery or baking or dancing. It doesn't matter. Or cars. It doesn't matter. I want to know more about why. Like, why did people love it? You're touching on some psychological elements there, but what is it doing for the viewer at home in terms of the, what is it giving them? Because it's not just cars. Oh, no, no. We were still a car show, but we always used to say, you don't have to be a car nerd to watch it.
We do that for you. I think it was a means of escape, but through a relatable portal. Because you could look at all of us three, and let's be honest, we're none of us. Brad Pitt. We're none of us. anything really uh you could i think people would always find they'd identify with one of the three of us am i the little short squeaky brummy one or i the more graceful long-haired slightly fat one or the really big fat shouty one which one am i which one and you'd fall into one of those camps and so that would sort of take you along with us on whatever adventure we were going on it's why we ended up making today the the big trips because that's what people liked the proper escape The one thing that troubles me, though, is about that business about the subject being important.
If you're going to make a TV show, a podcast, a piece of internet content, whatever, about something, the subject leads. It has to. It has to have that authenticity and integrity to it because we, the audience, will see when it doesn't. And it's a cast for some reason. are always, if somebody's going to make a TV show or a piece of internet content about it, they say, right, we'll do this thing about cars, OK, and then they don't get anybody who knows about cars involved in making it.
But you wouldn't do that if it was baking or dancing or cooking or sport or football. I mean, you wouldn't. You'd want that baked in because it's not so the wrong foot... your consumers, your listeners, your viewers, or catch them out or show off that you know more than they do. But you can demonstrate, yeah, this is real. This is an authentic passion. And we always kept that right at the forefront. It wasn't big, but it was there. even though what we were doing was ridiculous, often.
How much of it was scripted per se? I was watching some clips earlier on and there were such moments of brilliance. I was wondering, is that like a producer in their ear telling them to... crack that joke or to like say that to him? Or is that just them being comfortable enough to be free? The really good bits are in the moment. But I mean, that's easy to guess, isn't it? You'll have said some killer, funny or incredibly moving things in the moment.
That's when we do our best work, all of us. So we would always devise a broad trajectory for the whole thing if we're making a special. It's expensive, so we can't just, oh, we'll just get a mongala and see if some stuff happens. You've got to set something up. But you know that's the minimum you're going to come back with. And you know the best bits will be the unplanned bits, of course, always. Was there a moment in the journey of Top Gear where you thought to yourself, fucking hell, this is really...
What? This is big. Oh, well, surprising moments. Day one, studio one, series one, standing in Dunst's Fault. So this is 2002, very early, or maybe 2001 we filmed it, I think. I can't remember. Long time ago. Standing on the stage. And, you know, I'd always watched Top Gear because I loved cars. And I'd watched Jeremy on it. He's older than me and he was already doing it. And so as we were... It was recording one. They played in the Top Gear theme.
And my instant response from inside was, ''Oh, Top Gear's on. Brilliant. Oh, I'm on it. I better concentrate.'' But, yeah, there were key moments once when we were driving three cut-price supercars that we'd bought. And we pulled into a petrol station, so this is early days... And everybody came out running to see us and to talk about the cars, and they sort of got the, oh, what are you boys doing? What are you up to now? And that's when we realised, oh, hang on, we've created something here.
It's got a momentum of its own, which is great. And it really did have a momentum on its own globally. No idea why. Honestly, none of us have. None of us have. It was... We just made the best show we could. And next thing we know, we're walking out in front of 30,000 people on stage in South Africa or Sydney or Hong Kong or all around the world doing the live stage shows with people that loved the show. And we're like, why? We went out in front of 60,000 people in the Polish National Stadium in Warsaw and...
And just before we went out on stage, I was at the lads backstage, and we have those earpieces and microphones, so you can only hear each other, otherwise too much noise. And they're all, there's music playing, we're about to all drive out with some terrible stunts. I usually hadn't listened to the briefing, so there'd be a crash. And just before we went out, I said, lads... Have three guys with less talent ever gone out in front of more people?
We thought, no, that's never happened. It was just a serendipitous lining up of a need for a slightly anarchic approach. I don't know. It was just a time. Came and went. When we fitted. It. Someone asked me on an interview I did earlier on, it was on Arcadia magazine, they said, is there any guilt associated with your success? And it's quite a curious question, and it stunned me into a bit of a silence. Guilt? How does that question sit with you?
Is there any guilt? Same thing, yeah, there is. Guilt is, it's slightly more refined than that, it's almost a why me. It's, what? Um, yeah, because I'm still the little Birmingham lad that being a photographer wasn't for me. That's for other people. I can't do that. I can't actually be a photographer for real in the big world. And if somebody had said I could, you know, run various businesses and be a television presenter and no, don't be daft. There's not guilt.
It's been conscious of being the beneficiary of a great deal of luck. When I was younger, I went through a phase of, yeah, but luck often lands at two in the morning and you're the only one still in the radio station editing, so that's where I... No, it's just luck. It really is, because I've got people who started in the same year as me, 88. And I got all the luck. I took some serendipitous decisions. I took some risky decisions. I stepped away from my only ever job with a company car, back into broadcasting and took a massive pay car.
I took a massive pay hit when I joined Top Gear. They were risks, but... They're only risked if they're freely made, given that they were the product of whatever it was in me that was driving me to do what I was doing. It was already going to happen. So I'm lucky because not only did that opportunity come along, but earlier in my life something had happened and equipped me with the need to gain whatever it was. I stood a chance of gaining from taking that risk, so I took that risk.
So it's still luck. It's still luck. Somebody else could have had that same opportunity, but they hadn't been lucky enough on top of that to have been given that extra impetus to pursue it and take that risk by something that happened earlier in their lives. So it's luck. And I've just been very lucky. That's a strange feeling, though, isn't it? To think that you got to live this life because of a set of factors that, you know, you were born in a certain place in a certain way.
And then that created that impetus you describe and then... The dominoes that fell and the decisions you chose to make because of all of those subsequent experiences lands you with this incredible job with an incredible level of freedom. It can be quite, as you say, a why me feeling. Yeah. Is it guilt? It kind of is. It tastes slightly differently, but it is sort of. Is it embarrassment? Is it slightly embarrassing? Is that why having, God, accidentally stepped into so many luck traps, I'm now running my businesses and because that's something I'll feel I can say, no, I did that, that wasn't just lucky, I made that happen by consciously taking decisions, by thinking about it.
Maybe. Don't know. But then I'm lucky enough to have the opportunity to do that, which I would never have had. So it's all... The whole experiment of my life has been skewed entirely by those key elements of luck at those key stages. But... But we all have those. We're lucky to be alive, and it's easy to say that, and it sounds trite and nonsensical, but we are. And for each one of us to experience our own individual perception of the universe, to live this experience, is so phenomenally lucky.
So many millions and billions of things have to not just have happened, but continue happening for that to be possible. That whether or not whilst experiencing this miracle of self-awareness in and of the universe, we also get to go on the telly driving about in a car or not. It's kind of irrelevant at the end. This, having this conversation, being aware of having loved ones, being aware of yourself in the world, being aware of the world, all of that, that's the amazing stuff.
The rest is just stuff. And that's easy to say for me because I'm not that worried about my next phone bill. It's a lot harder if you are. I get that. And I'm not... I'm not... Not failing to be aware of that. And right now, for a lot of people, whether or not they get to do a job on TV driving around in cars or whether or not they get to look at the universe and talk about the idea of God and love existing or not with their mates is kind of less important than they've just had to have a prepaid meter fitted for their gas.
So... The answer to that, guilt, embarrassment, I think carry it with you, maybe learn from it, look up from it occasionally, think, how can I, what can I, can it make me better able to connect with people? And that, just that would be useful. What's your opinion of yourself? You know, when you, what's the, this is a really interesting question, but you said something which kind of brought me to this question about this idea that maybe building these businesses that you have now is another pursuit of like proving one is worthy, I guess, because of.
I want to prove I'm not a lucky idiot. So what does that say? That's why I said, what's your opinion of yourself? Oh, it's probably, I guess for that reason, as I've probably just revealed, it's probably quite low, isn't it? I'm very conscious of being very lucky, I think, to describe myself... What does the voice in Richard's head say Richard is, who he is, what he is? He'd like to be more fair about life. That troubles me, I think, fairness, and I'm aware it's desperately unfair.
But also, yeah, as with a lot of us, I'm fairly... Anxious inside? Need to be loved? Same. Desperately. Need to be reassured. And one of the dangers, I mean, I should imagine you'll find this given, you know, you're young and enjoying a stellar career in what are archetypal positions of power and authority. So it's very likely that the world will look at you and think, well, he's the last one that needs a bit of reassurance and a chuck on the shoulder and someone to say, oh, you're doing really well, well done.
Whereas actually, you do. And I certainly find that's something that I need. I need someone to acknowledge that... things are going well and you're taking advantage of whatever luck comes your way. And, you know, I love building my businesses up because I love the fact that I'm conscious. That's other people's jobs. This is their story I'm helping build. If they get working with me at 24, even if they only work with me for five years, they'll remember that forever like I remember the first radio stations I worked at.
This is their history. We're taking a part in writing, so I'm conscious of that. But at the same time, sometimes you just need someone to ruffle your hair and go, well done. That would be nice. Yeah. I'm not asking you to ruffle my hair, just because I'm slightly awkward. I guess it's quite curious because someone would, someone looking in might think, well, you know, Richard's done so much in his life. He must just be absolutely satisfied and he must be, feel completely complete and like there's nothing more else to prove or to, but the business point you made sounds like you feel like you have something to prove there.
Yeah, and I'm 53, I've got another go-round in me, yeah. I'd like to have. I don't know, when you're thinking about time off, if you've ever got time off coming out, which I shouldn't imagine is very often, I don't know, it isn't for me either, but when it is, I always think, yeah, God, I'd love to just take a week and wake up every day and just go for a run and then maybe ride an old motorcycle and just really, really revel in... No, I don't. Immediately, I am hideously addicted to work.
But that's hardly surprising, given that work has also been self-verification and it's the reward that I probably shouldn't have had. So obviously I'm addicted to that. There's a cost in that though, right? Yeah, yeah, if you're not careful. What's the cost? Your relationships. You know, my two daughters. I've made excuses over the years. I've been sitting in a rainforest filming and there'll be a camera operator and maybe it's a bloke and he's just at his first children and he's away from home and he's upset.
And I've said, yeah, but you've got to remember, you know, you're their first example. of how to lead a life you can see where this is going and you know you're going to come back with amazing stories and they're going to look and think wow well if he can pursue his dreams and do that i can pursue mine and you'll inspire them yeah but they also just would quite like you to be around that's a fact um Yeah, I've been able to provide well for my girls, Izzy and Willow.
I wish I'd been there more, of course I do. But if I'd been there more, we wouldn't have been where we were. Our life would be so different because I've worked sort of in and out of London for 25 years and we've lived deliberately out of London. They've been raised in Herefordshire, that's their county, that's where they belong. My eldest, I bumped into her in London this week. She popped into the flat. And she'd just been out in a pub in Fulham, and pretty much everybody in there was from her county of Herefordshire, and she knew them all.
And that's important. She can drift around London and know people, or she can drift around her home county, and the same for Willow. And that's important for them. They've got a bigger view of the world, but they still have a home to go to and always shall have. Have you ever pondered that you might, because I'm a workholic. I've overdone it. No, no, no. Well, basically I'm definitely addicted to work and sometimes, and like just still the pursuit of like building and creating things and, you know, success.
And I sometimes ponder in certain moments, it will just catch me that, this isn't what it's all about. And that I'm like missing the point. And going back to my point earlier, I'm being dragged by a need for validation. Whereas I'm going to get to my deathbed, be laying there and go, so I just wish I'd just gone and hang out on a mountain with my partner in Peru a little bit more and been there, you know, for my kids and my dog. Yes, but you didn't.
And there's no magic in this. It's simply what happens is what happens. And that's the way you've gone and the way you're collected experience. If you imagine you are the sort of front of a tsunami of stuff and that's the way it's taken you, that's the way it's taken you. There's good and there's bad within it. I don't... I never feel actual solid regret. Ever. Ever. Because that's the way it went. So I just don't feel it. Good and bad. I'm not saying this is a good quality, but I just don't feel it.
And not because I engineer it out of myself. I simply don't feel it, because that's the way I've gone. It also helps you sort of live now, which is, that's a huge part of the answer. You could continue being driven as you are by work for the rest of your life. If you're able to be mindfully present and actually experience it, then great. All of that will come into it. You talked about a crash earlier. While you were filming Top Gear. Yeah, not a very good driver, me.
36 years old, 2006, I believe. Yeah. Take me to that day. Well, we'd had a discussion in the office, and I have told this story before, and some people, you might be bored of it, sorry. Andy Willman, the editor, had said he'd got this chance for this car to be driven. And I'd gone into the office saying, look, I just want to go really fast. What's the fastest we can go? It's that dumb an idea. They came up with this car and I went to drive and I turned up on the day, did numerous runs in the thing.
It was pretty basic and crude. really quite fast, especially when you hit the afterburner. Jet propelled dragster. I didn't have a speedo in the car because they knew I'd be chasing speeds and that would be dangerous. So there was no speedo. I didn't know how fast I was going until after the event. You stopped it, to stop it from high speed, I had to pull the parachute cord, the parachute came out and stopped it. And I'd done all the day's runs and the director came over and said, ''Rich, I've got permission for one last run.'' ''Oh, brilliant, right.'' We were happy with how it's gone, but let's get one more bag of shots.
And I was aware something had happened. All I recall is a sense of, ''Oh, no.'' Foot going towards a break and realised I was doing three... I didn't know, but I was doing 300, just shy of 320 miles an hour. So breaks are not going to do anything. The car, what had happened is the front tyre had delaminated and blown. The car had skewed right and was going off the road, but it was still doing 290mph as it started to roll. I'd pulled the lever for the parachute, which was all that mattered to me when I finally, weeks or months later, became aware of what was happening.
I needed to know had I done that, because I looked at my children and thought, if I've nearly denied you a father for the rest of your lives because I'm an idiot and I did the wrong thing, I wouldn't forgive myself, but I did do the right thing. So it just, it was never going to stop it. So then it went over. And it rolled. And as it went over, I knew, you know, there's no roof. Just a roll bar. I didn't know how fast I was going, but I knew it was fast.
And I just thought, well, I'm going to die now. But it wasn't. Again, I'm on record as saying this, and I don't want to go on about it because I get self-conscious. I don't want anybody to think, oh, stop going on about that, and I'm not. But if you are interested, I found it interesting that there was no fear associated with that. There was no... Oh no! There was genuinely, it was answering a question that kind of at the back of my mind I'd always wondered and I think a lot of us do, all of us.
When am I going to die? How? Why? And it was like, oh, it's now. That's the answer. That's the next thing to do. That was it. And then I wasn't conscious again until in hospital. And I was conscious, apparently, when they got to the car, but I have no recollection, because the damage was done. Brain, decelerative, sloshing forward, so frontal lobe, bleed. Because just decelerating upside down, using my head as a brake, it isn't good for you. Have you heard the story about what was going on in your family at that time, while you were unconscious in hospital?
Yeah. Who called Mindy, your wife? Yeah, Mindy was called. She was on the road. She was called by Willman. They all spoke. It was hard. My daughters were young. And for them to grasp it was pretty difficult. Yeah, it's disruptive, it's horrible, and it's hard. My memories are all over the place anyway because I had very bad post-traumatic amnesia for weeks, like a one-minute memory. which Mindy, my wife, always says I was the nicest I've ever been.
I was lovely apparently. I was perfectly happy, which does make me and has made me think often since that I've got a friend who's... We all have friends perhaps, or ourselves, whose parents are, through whatever degenerative form of illness, losing memories. And I always say to him, is she happy? Yeah, fine. If I go to see them, she'll come into the pub to see me three or four times and is equally happy each time. But that's all right. It doesn't matter.
And I was perfectly happy reading the same newspaper every single day, several times a day. It was by my bed. I'd just pick it up and, oh, brilliant, I'd sit down and read it, put it down. A minute later, gone. Until Mindy took it away because she was sick of seeing me read it. But it was more distressing. And really the message there is, yeah, if somebody is in that confused state of whatever variety and for whatever reason, if they're happy, they're happy.
then all you've got to do is cope to support them in that happiness. It doesn't matter if they can't remember who you are, what anything is. If they're happy, they're happy. And that's that. And I was. When you're in that coma, I watched the video you produced about your incredibly powerful video about your morphine dream. And the crooked tree on the hill. Is that true? That there was a morphine? Yeah, I was in a... I was being held in coma because brain was expanding post-crash, so it was...
They were holding me in coma, but it was looking very, very bad, and they had called Mindy in. And they said, I think we're losing him. I think I do. She said, is there anything I can do? Not really. Try anything. Can I shout? Yeah. So she roared and shouted at me, don't you dare die. I'm really quite swearing and cross. Why did she do that? Because she was cross. She didn't want me to die. I think there's lots of people who've done that. I think I'd do that.
But when all else is tried and failed, if somebody is lying there, yeah, last resort. Don't you dare. Because, you know, she wanted me around. I think we'd all do that. It's not just a movie trope. You are calling to somebody. And I think we know in our heart of hearts, we do have a great deal of independence in terms of what happens to us. Our mind is a powerful thing. Mind and body are one. Chiropractor, friend of mine. Chiropractor, he'll kill me for that.
Osteopath, friend of mine. Steve. Sorry, Steve. Osteopath, very well-read man. And we were talking about mind and body as one. And about, you know, bringing... I said something about bringing mind and body to work together and all together. And he said, well, yeah, well, it is all one because it's never been apart. Oh, yeah. Your body and mind have never existed separately. They've only ever existed as one, and one needs the other and compliments, and one is the other.
Which is why, if in that coma state, and it's only an altered state of consciousness, I'm not dead, I picked up on the emotion from Mindy, the anger, and thought, ooh, yeah. I said the dream was honestly all going to be in trouble now. It's not funny anymore. It's a very distinctive flavour of, you know, when you're feeling you're being a bit naughty and you're being cheeky and you're getting, and then you're like, oh, no, I really am in trouble.
And that's when she was really roaring and shouting. And yes, our mind can do an awful lot with our bodies. There's enough evidence of that over the years. Your mind took you to your favourite place. Which gives me immense comfort. Because it will do that eventually anyway. I know that's where I'll go. And given that at the moment of dying, of the body shutting down, of it stopping to do all the things that it does, you're no longer tied by all those... By time...
Not biological rhythms, lunar rhythms. None of those matter. You're not beholden to them anymore, which is a kind of eternity. So if my last thought had been walking around that tree in... I was up there two weeks ago. The Lake District. Yeah, went to the same tree. Yeah, if my mind takes me around there. And that thought echoes for all of eternity as far as I'm concerned. And really, the universe only exists as far as I'm concerned or you're concerned.
It's only your perception of it. And if that last moment is no longer constrained by worrying about heartbeats or cycling of the seasons, it's kind of an eternity, isn't it? And I wouldn't mind hanging around by that tree forever. What was happening in that dream? So you were in a coma and you have sort of a morphine-induced dream where you're walking up a hill. Yeah, I was walking up the hill towards a tree and I grew increasingly conscious that, ooh, I'm going to be in trouble for carrying on.
No, no, I'm going to carry on. I just want to press on. And then as I reached the tree, it was a very clear, oh, no, I really am going to be in trouble. I better go back. And that's the point. I just related that story as a unit to Mindy. And it was very clear when I was brought out of a coma shortly after. And that's when it happened. I mean, it could be a story... Don't forget, your brain fills in things after the fact. A sense of recollection is all you need for something to be in the past.
It doesn't have to actually be in the past. But I've retained... I've gained immense comfort from it. I find it very comforting and warming to think, so I'll continue to think it. Why is it comforting and warming to think... Because I think the question of what happens, since we are aware of our own mortality, we're aware of the world, and we're aware that it's quite nice being here to be aware of it, and if that's one possible resolution, one possible that might be where it goes, that's all right for me.
It's not the first time you had a car crash. Yes. Nor the last. Yeah, I've had a lot. Yes, I went off a hill in Switzerland. Yeah, that was just, again, idiocy. Failed to break at the finish line, went off. I did think I was dying on that one. After that first major crash, the one where you were going 319-odd miles an hour, did your risk appetite change? No. Kind of no, because it was always assessed as risk. I knew there was risk. And we had done everything we could mitigate against that.
The air ambulance came. I was saved. No. It has done more latterly, but that's because I'm getting older, I think. No, it didn't really radically change it. You came remarkably close to your two young girls not having a father. And getting close to that reality must leave some kind of perspective change or some kind of... It would certainly make me think about the prospect and maybe start planning differently or... It possibly did that, but then...
Getting older does that. Passing 40, passing 50 does that. It's in line with everything else that's ever happened in my life. It doesn't really stand out massively. It did for a while. But it doesn't stand out as a particularly that's, we'll hang everything on that, because there's also passing 40. There's all those other milestones that we all have and processes that we go through. subtle and not so subtle shifts in our priorities needs that happens it's just that's just woven into the fabric of my life and it's just one couple of stitches in it after the crash um you experienced depression Yeah, I mean, I was told, Mindy was told by the doctors that a frontal lobe brain injury would possibly lead to me having a greater propensity for obsession, compulsion, depression, paranoia.
Mindy left a pause, my wife, and just, you didn't meet him before the crush, did you? Which is quite funny, to be fair, that's quite a good line. Yeah, I think I did suffer a bit. I'd suffered all of those things to a degree. Yeah. In so much as I became aware of them as a thing because I could feel them from the inside and see through them to the outside. So, yeah, I was aware of them. All of those things, obsession, compulsion, paranoia. Yeah.
Depression? Yeah. What were the symptoms of that that made you realise that it was a reality for you? How were you different or what did you feel? Some of them were really weird moments. And I still get an echo of it. I remember having been institutionalised for a long time in hospitals. And actually in recovery, when I thought I was free, I wasn't really, I was still being monitored and I was still being carefully guided. But when I was really free, I would have, you know, I'd be coming into London to do something and I could open the wardrobe door and just look at all the shirts and just trying to work out, oh, it was too much.
Choice was a problem. I found choice really difficult for quite a long time. But also, I mean, feeling your emotions... derailed or interfered with as a result of what is only a neurochemical imbalance. That's all we're talking about, just chemicals and electricity. I was walking across my drive of my house and I felt this sudden, welling upsurge of love in my chest. What's that? This is... Not that long, I was still on the road to recovery, I suppose.
And eventually I identified it. I'd walked past my old Land Rover, which I do love, but only because I quite like it. It's an old Land Rover. But it just triggered this absolutely... I thought, blimey. It made me think. You know, if emotions can be that profoundly affected by what was just a mix-up of chemicals and electricity in my head, then I am more aware of... I don't listen to my emotions too closely if I'm very, very tired. or if I've had a big night out with the boys the night before, if I've drunk red wine, I do not tune in to see what I think about anything because it's irrelevant for a day.
Those are the rules. I've been quite lucky for that reason, that I've had that slightly more objective look at my own self, my emotional self and myself. On that road to recovery, was there a hardest day where you look back and go, that was the most challenging for myself and Mindy and... Oh, there were loads. Anger was... I was angry for a while. Really? Not massively, but anger is a problem in people recovering from brain injury. The weirdest thing, though, I've chatted to so many people who've recovered from acquired brain injury, acquired in so many different ways, from being shot to falling off a ladder to a car crash, whatever.
§03Transcript — part 3
And the similarities are astonishing in the road to recovery. Really are. the confusions, the weaknesses, the slight... It's not guilt. I wanted a T-shirt on the front that said, I'm OK, stop asking, and on the back that said, I'm still poorly, you know. Because if you run for a bus, it's been a while since you ran for a bus, but if one were to run for a bus, and you twist your ankle, and you sort of carry on running on the, I'm alright, I'm fine, yup, yup, it's a bit like that with what I'd done.
But of course what I'd injured was me. where I am, and how I see where I am. There's a horrible circularity to that type of injury. And I had a close friend who, again, was similarly injured, falling off a horse, because he's an idiot. And again, massive similarities there. A more different man you couldn't imagine. He has dignity, status, gravitas, great family, everything I'm not. But his experience of recovery, very, very similar. Are there any remnants of the accident in terms of injuries?
Probably, but there's probably remnants of everything that's happened to you in your life and everything that's happened to me in mine. Are you aware of any? Is Mindy aware of any? No. I worry, I do worry about my memory, cos it's not brilliant. My working memory is very large, my sort of processing memory in the moment, so I can still read a page of script and deliver it. But my longer-term... Oh, brilliant. I have to consciously write memories down and work hard to recall them sometimes.
Now, that might be because I'm 50. It might be... Or 53. It might be because I'm working a lot and I'm tired. It might be the onset of something else. Do you worry about that? Yeah. Hmm. I do. I do. I should probably have a look, find out. Probably should. Are you scared to find out? Yeah. Yeah, because, you know, there was a bleed on the front. It could mean there's an increased risk. I don't know. I need to find out. I've just... I have been too scared to do it, but I do need to...
I need to... I need to do it. Weirdly, on the way here, I had to stop off for a medical. When you're doing a production, you'll know you have to have a medical, which always has been involved in any accidents. Can I have another piece of paper, please? I'm still going. Very nice doctor. And at the end I said, yeah, I should definitely, I need to put myself in for one of those midlife MOTs to see if everything's OK. And I wanted to say, and to check, there's nothing going awry up here.
But I chickened out. Didn't. I probably need an MRI scan. But at 53, you know, your memory does start to get a bit. They call it lost keys syndrome, the doctors did when I first came home from brain injury. And they have it with a lot of patients because, you know, they would lose their keys and go into an absolute flat tailspin. Oh no, I've lost my keys, it's great. No, you've just lost your keys. It happens. I am quite forgetful. I'm generally not paying attention.
Generally thinking about something else, the next thing. And therefore, I do drop the ball. I forget stuff, I lose stuff, I forget keys. But that's just me. That's not a function of something going wrong. It's how I am. Isn't it such a peculiar thing that humans will... Avoid finding out something if they think there's potentially bad news on the end of it. I was reading some, I think some crazy study I was reading about over Christmas while I was writing about how if someone is diagnosed with breast cancer at work and they're in close proximity to you, you're less likely to go and get a checkup.
Really? Which is counter to what we would imagine was the game. You'd assume, but it's this avoidance of discomfort, the psychological discomfort associated with finding out bad news. And I had a procrastination expert on the podcast once upon a time, and he said, whenever you're procrastinating on something, it's because there's some sort of psychological discomfort associated with the activity, an essay you don't feel competent about, so you end up just doing the dishes all day, or whatever it might be.
So when you're procrastinating, you've got to ask yourself that question. What is the psychological discomfort here that I'm trying to avoid? So I'm asking you, Richard, what is the psychological discomfort you're trying to avoid and why? Quite simply, facing something I wouldn't want to face. It's my own doom. It's all that. I would find it very difficult to talk to my family and say, right, this is what's coming. I know I'd be all right. As I've said, if you're in a confused state, it doesn't bother you.
But I'd feel bad putting that on them. Yeah, I want them to have a future full of hope and clarity and energy and vigour and potential and fun. And I don't want to interrupt that. That's heavy. Yeah. I'm coming in from a laugh, do you? Blimey. It's interesting, you know, this conversation about like health anxiety. I think it's one worth having and trying to get to a solution on because whether it's that or whether it's a lump I feel somewhere or whether it's a testicle that's a bit of a strange shape or whatever it might be that we do.
A lot of us live with this health anxiety of like, if I just ignore it, then it's not a thing. But then obviously ignoring it with many ailments causes it to be a thing. Yeah. But it's not surprising that we don't want to face it. Surely not. It's, I mean, logic would say... I don't think that requires a procrastination expert who I did hear, and I have heard him on the radio as well, and I always laugh about whether it really turns up, obviously.
The science of procrastination. But I don't think it requires that to realise, of course we don't want to know. We're aware of ourselves. We're aware of the fact that we're aware of the world and we enjoy that process. Daffodils doesn't have to stand around worrying about being a daffodil. It just is a daffodil. I think as you get older, you can make that process easier. I do find, you know, practicing a bit of mindfulness or thinking about things, asking about things, talking about things can make it easier.
And you don't have to imagine a world without you in because you won't be in it. So you are only in your world for as long as you're in it. And that's eternity as far as you're concerned. Have you spoken to Mindy about that anxiety? Yeah. So it's not an elephant in the room? No, no, no. And she's pushed you to go get checked, hasn't she? Yeah, probably should. Yeah. I will. Yeah. If anything, it does demonstrate that we are much more emotional and a lot less logical than we think we are, you know, because the logical decision would be, I have a lump, I should go get it checked, but the humans tend to go.
I mean, they often just Google it and convince themselves they have something even worse, or they just avoid. But also, you don't want to show weakness, and that again is perfectly normal. Well, both my daughters and my wife, they're all into horses. But my youngest daughter, Willow, her horse was unwell. And she pointed out to me that they have evolved to be incredibly good at masking pain and discomfort, because they're a herd animal. if they're not in the herd, they die.
So they need to hide it. They need to, yeah, I'm just one of the lads, here I am, I'm fine. Yeah, I'll run with you over there. And they will do because that's their only chance of survival. The moment they say, oh, I'm feeling a bit crooked, so I might stay here. I'm not saying we're horses. No, but it's a great analogy and one I think I can relate to. You know, being a CEO and always being the leader. Yeah, you've got to be, I'm fine, I'm fine.
Yeah. Hmm. What have you masked? Oh, God. Oh, insecurity, not being sure of the way forwards. Also simply tiredness, but I quite enjoy that. I enjoy being up first. It's dumb, but I like it. You know, if I've got people, if we are all away with work and we're all staying together, I like to be up first, go for a run, partly to signal to myself, Rich, you're more important than all of this, and that's important, and partly to signal to them that, no, don't worry, I've got this.
I've not only got this, I've got this before I've got this, so we'll be fine. Well, like that injured horse analogy, is there anything that you've masked that you've masked because you'd think it would be a weakness? I know I certainly have. I reflect on it, especially in my career, when I was younger, when I was struggling, I wouldn't tell a person because I couldn't believe that a CEO and a man could possibly express that. So, But that's different now, surely.
I think it is far easier. I mean, I think, you know, the patriarchal society and all the stereotypes and tropes contained within it have done just as much damage to men in many ways, different damage. But that inability to share, that inability to show, I think that has changed or is changing. Though I have to be very careful here because I live in a frightfully nice middle class bubble and I've fallen foul of this before because I live in a very happy world where there is no, in my little world, there is no racism, homophobia, sexism, bullying.
It's nice. And then it's easy to forget. And then you say things based on that. And then you look out at the broader world and realise, oh, hang on a minute. That really isn't doing much for the situation of somebody living here or coping with that. But I think on the whole, it's easier now to share things. Was there a point where you can recall opening up and the positive consequence of opening up in a way that you maybe haven't before? Because I can think of times where, for the first time ever, I've just said to my partner, look, I've got to tell you something.
This is how I'm feeling about this. And old Steve never would have done that. He would have been too much of a tough guy. He would have seen it as just a tremendous weakness. I... I can't remember when that happens. I know, I mean, I'm off up to the Lake District this weekend and I will see Les, my oldest mate, he's a shepherd up there, an AED who runs the bridge, and my two brothers are coming with me. And we're going to have a sort of supper on the Saturday evening.
We're going to cook... And it is the most natural thing in the world. That's four very disparate people with very disparate jobs. There's a head teacher, a stockbroker, a television presenter, a businessman, a man running a hotel and a shepherd. But we will share things very happily. And it feels the most natural thing in the world. It doesn't feel like, oh, no, let's be really serious and let's share our own feelings and let's be supportive and not... No, we will do.
And it can be knockabout. It doesn't have to be artificially gentle and all on a bed of cotton wool. We can still take the piss, we can still have a laugh, but we are doing it with love. We are. We need that. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Very definitely. Men especially. Men more so because they're useless at it and realising that these things have value and it's OK. And it doesn't mean you have to turn into something you don't want to turn into or change you as a person.
I have really rugged chats with... Oh, my mate's from forces. Often soldiers are pretty good at it nowadays. Ex-military. Yeah. Fess up to how you feel. Why not? Nothing to be ashamed of. Your beautiful young daughters, Isabel and Willow, they turn to you and they say, Dad, what advice would you give me on living a full, content, happy life? I'd rather just ask me for money. I would say... I've got a beautiful picture here that I found. Oh, that is them.
On the internet. Bless them. That's after doing some show or other, yeah. That is them, I would say... Well, they already are, in a way. They make wise decisions. They're clever. Willow had got into the young... She'd got into a couple of good universities to do psychology. She loved it. She's interested in it. She's bright. They both are. But she'd got a bit quieter about it. We said, what's up? She said, well, I'll do the psychology. But we know the only thing I've really been passionate about is horses and matters equestrian.
And I don't want to get five years from now and think, oh, I could have done it. I say, no, you're absolutely right. And if there's one piece of luck you need to take advantage of, it's that I'm not... I can afford to look after you for a bit longer. So if you want to go and explore it, and then in five years' time you'll be able to say, yeah, I did it, or I did it and failed. That's better than not. So they're already thinking quite wisely about their futures.
What does that picture mean to you in terms of the people in it? They're the most important people in my world, but I've been taken away, I've taken myself away from them too much over the years in order to support them. But actually the support they needed sometimes was me being there and that's the hardest thing. And I can't undo that. And there's me saying, I have no regrets. I... Regrets are a funny... I don't feel it as a real pain. Like, I wish I could go back and change it.
Because I know I can't. So I simply don't feel it in that way. But I do wish I'd found a way of being there with and for them more. Just as me, rather than as me being away in a jungle or on a glacier, earning lots of money and sending it home. And Mindy. Yeah, I include Mindy in that. They all three shout at me when I go home. Yeah. But they're the reason, you know, they're the reason I do it. And that is the truth. You've been through a lot with Mindy.
A lot. She's been through a lot with me, poor thing. We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest asks a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're leaving it for. The question that's been left for you is, what is the single greatest piece of advice that you have ever been given? Oh, single greatest piece of advice I've ever been given. And I've known some really wise people. Tim Jackson, who was my boss at Renault, we lost him last year.
Absolutely tremendous man. And he would have given me lots of advice because he was... I mean, it was to Tim Jackson, actually, that I'd broken out of radio because I was starving to death. And I realised I was never going to get to make motoring TV shows based in a bedsit somewhere in the north. I needed to get down to where the work was. So I got a job at Renault UK in the press office. And my boss there was Tim Jackson, who was the PR director and just the loveliest man.
He only gave me the job because during the interview he'd realised I was wearing a pair of shoes that had buckles and laces and he'd drawn them throughout the interview and he said to his secretary, look at that, I think we've given the job. He told me to follow, it sounds really cheesy and I don't want to dress it up as follow my heart, but I knew I resigned twice because I got the job for a bit of TV work. So I actually did, I filmed the review of my company car, sent off to Pete Baker, and he said, yeah, okay, well, I can't promise you a lot of work, but I'll give you some.
So I had to leave Renault. So I went back to Tim and said, Tim, I'm going. And tears in my eyes when I said it, we were both heartbroken, because I really enjoyed working with them. And in fact, I went back in end of that week and said, no, I can't go, I'm staying. But then I went back in on the Monday and said, no, I am going. and he absolutely said you've got to go you have to follow it while you can and I think that applies to everything and anything because you won't always be able to and maybe that's maybe that's what it distills down to if you're thinking should I do this well can you do this and might there come a time when you can't in which case you should And that's sort of what came out of what I had with that quite teary conversation over an egg sandwich one morning with Tim Jackson 20 odd years ago.
Richard, thank you so much. It's an honor to meet you. It's a great pleasure. As someone I've watched since I was a young man. Yeah, right. Thank you. No, but you're incredible for so many reasons, not least because of your success and everything, but really, You're a remarkable communicator, someone I've really learned a lot from in that department. Communication, telling stories and keeping someone engaged through vivid language and your sort of tonal expression.
It's really remarkable. And you've lived a life which is incredibly inspiring. So thank you so much for the inspiration. It means a huge honour to meet you today and to have the opportunity to have this conversation for you. I was tremendously excited and you've over delivered and then some in terms of everything I was hoping this conversation could be. So thank you. Thank you for your kind words. And I enjoyed it. And I look forward to seeing the next one.
Thank you.